11,506 stories by "Trav S.D."
Have no fear, I have no attention of taking down or running down the idiosyncratic genius of Bruce MacLeish Dern (b. 1936). The title refers to the fact that this post will divide aspects of…
I am in the midst of a very mushy "soft roll-out" of my latest book. The Marx Brothers Miscellany became available to purchase about six weeks ago, and I certainly hawked it at the just-clos…
Two old time actors of note were born on June 2, 1874. Lulu Glaser came from Pennsylvania Dutch stock. She was only 17 when she began to show up in New York stage productions, initially unde…
Today we salute one of the key figures in the silent movie Renaissance of the last several decades: author, collector, preservationist, director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and…
June 1 is National Game Show Day apparently, a holiday one mightn't have thought society required ("Those poor neglected game shows! Let us…let us take a day to memorialize them!") But it …
It's quite true! And (a fact that should be much more widely known) it was started by none other than P.T. Barnum! The final iteration of Barnum's American Museum burned down in 1868, but th…
Happy National Smile Day! With several Coney Island events fresh in our rear view mirror, and the Mermaid Parade just three weeks away, the natural topic of exploration today would appear to…
Here's news so good I had to share it in my Marxfest talk at Coney Island USA last Sunday…and that is Woman with a Beard Jennifer Miller and Circus Amok, her ground-breaking Brechtian stre…
We've only got about 20 posts in the Bob Hope (1903-2003) section of Travalanche, but still it seemed useful to create a post which laid them out in a sensible order for ease of perusal. And…
Who was television variety's biggest comedy giant? My answer may throw you for a loop, but I have a sound rationale. Other names may spring automatically to mind through force of habit, and …
Item One: Coney Island. A couple of weeks ago the Daily News announced a plan by Thor Equities to build a casino and other commercial retail in Coney Island. Though Thor has behaved rapaciou…
Well it's Memorial Day, and this year we unavoidably think of those fallen in the battle between Freedonia and Sylvania in Duck Soup…as well as the many Marxfest events of the past 10 days…
A celebration today of actress Pam Grier (b. 1949). Grier was working as a receptionist at American International Pictures when the producers wisely judged that her talents were being wasted…
Among show biz buffs, Bennett Cerf (1898-1971) has become the poster child for How American Pop Culture Has Changed And Not for the Better. Cerf was the co-founder of the Random House publis…
Most of us think of Charlie Chaplin's Waterloo as arriving with the release of Monsieur Verdoux in 1947, or his exile from the U.S. in 1952. But his alienation from the public had commenced …
May 23 is National Taffy Day. The word taffy is a variant on the English word toffee, and though today we think of them as quite different candies, both words have always been used with a ce…
It's more than likely that I would have done a post on Harvey Milk (1930-1978) eventually anyway, but a few weeks ago I was reminded of something that pushed it to the top of the agenda: he …
A century ago today, a couple of rich numbskulls with the erroneous idea that they were somehow superior to the other members of the human race brutally killed a 14 year old boy just to prov…
Peggy Cass (Mary Margaret Cass, 1924-1999) would be 100 years old today. Cass was one of the thousand or so older celebrities you'd see on game shows and talk shows as a kid in the '70s with…
May 20 was the birthday of of silent and pre-code screen star Estelle Taylor (1894-1958). Taylor was a Wilmington native, raised by grandparents who owned a piano store. She was briefly marr…
I don't know if I'll get around to writing about ALL of Charlie Chaplin's numerous progeny here but several have interested me, and so we have done posts on Charlie Jr, Sydney the Younger, G…
You would have particular cause to know the screen work of Candice "Candy" Azzara (b. 1945) if you were around during the 1970s. That Brooklyn-accented voice, slightly daffy demeanor and hug…
May 17, was the day character Horace McMahon (1906-1971) came into the world. Not to be confused with Horace Mann, where you'll get an entirely different sort of schooling! The tough looking…
We've marked Music Hall and Variety Day here in the past because we think it is a marvelous idea. Today, I hope you will forgive me if I hijack the occasion for my own nefarious variety purp…
May 15 was the birthday of Joseph A. Campbell (1817-1900), founder of the Campbell Soup Company (est. 1869). We take the product for granted now, especially since it has been overtaken by be…
